Sports

Olympic Hotdogs, the works

Skiing was invented in Norway, and hotdogging in, you guessed it, US of A.

by Garrett Mok

I watched Bob Costas’ interview of Wayne Gretsky, the head coach of the Canadian national hockey team, after his team lost in quarter finals to Russia. The loss was a huge disappointment to Canadians, whose country invented the sport. Even after accomplishing what he did as perhaps the greatest hockey player ever, Gretsky sounded more humble and honest during the interview than the proverbial Average Joe. Sure his team lost, so he could not have been in a happy mood, made more downbeat and uncomfortable by a recent gambling scandal potentially involving his wife, but he did not try to put on a fake cheer or come up with excuses; he told his country’s and his team’s side of the story in a deliberate, thoughtful cadence that resonated with quiet emotions. It moved me. I noticed another thing: Wayne Gretsky could never have come from a country whose athletes put bickering, showboating and immaturity before their performance and honor to their country.

If hotdogging was an Olympic event, USA would have won gold, silver and bronze. Hands down, every four years. Let’s start with US speed skater Chad Hedrick. Hedrick wanted to walk out of Italy with five medals to challenge an Olympic record held by the great Eric Haden. One of the potential medals involved having his teammate Shani Davies lead the US team in a team pursuit; when Davies did not to focus on solo events, Hedrick got miffed. That’s fine, as long as he kept to himself. Being the loudmouth he is, he turned it, with media’s ratings-focused help, into a verbal pissing contest with Davies, the first African American to win Olympic gold in speed skating. In the end, Shani Davies came out looking no better. However, it is Hedrick who ultimately is two-faced, trying to make himself out to be the good team guy that he is not and boasting his skating prowess whenever chance he got. And he got a lot of those chances on primetime NBC. I’m sure we’ll be seeing Chad and his sly opportunistic grin in a Nike commercial in no time.

Apollo Anton Ohno won gold at scandal-marred 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics in short track with home town benefit by the judges in controversially disqualifying the top South Korean skater who won the event, Ohno himself coming in at second. Ohno was a consummate thespian in that race, theatrically raising his arms as if pleading ‘He won’t let me pass’ while he could have tried to pass on the outside, which is how he convinced the judges to call for an illegal block on the South Korean, disqualifying him. After ‘02 Salt Lake City Olympics, Ohno and US short track team even skipped races in South Korea for fear of – what? Truth? Retaliation for getting way with one? Yet on NBC, it’s Ohno time, all the time. To be fair, Ohno is not a pure hotdogger. But to bestow such media darling status to someone who won an unclean race is approaching ridiculousness. He redeemed himself by finally winning gold cleanly at the 500m event in the last days of Torino, but he’s no Wheaties boy.

Speaking of media darlings, how about alpine skier Bode Miller, who prefered drinking and fine Italian nightlife a little too much to concentrate on skiing, and walked away with no medals after much philosophizing on primetime NBC? NBC in turn focused incessantly on these two athletes, as though the Pretty Boy of short track and Bad Boy of alpine skiing were their ticket to Olympic heights in ratings.

Now the ladies. And what ladies. Looking less to advance gender equality and Olympic esprit de corps than be cuter snow divas in tight skinsuits, the US women outdid men in hotdogging this time around. There were the alpine skiers Julia Mancuso with her tiara (helmetless on a slalom course), and Resi Stiegler with her string of pearls and fake tiger ears glued on her helmet and shaking her ass in the end zone. This ain’t the prom, ladies. Or NFL for that matter. You won’t see a Canadian or an Austrian female skier preening down the mountain in Britney Spears getup. I’m surprised that IOC and the USOC permit such non-essential, to say the least, and distracting, personal items on team uniforms. And the US TV media being what they are, panned and zoomed on those shiny pearls around Resi’s neck instead of her dismal skiing records. Maybe Resi’s gunning for sponsorship from Kay Jewelers and early exit strategies. If Anna Kornikova could do it with tennis, why not Resi with skiing?

And there was Lindsey Jacobellis. With a short cruise down the end of the Women’s Snowboard Cross course for a sure gold medal win, she infamously showboated on the last hill and crash landed on her ass to have an Austrian boarder pass her by. This was after fighting for her life in the initial stage of the race in which two riders crashed. Dude, like, slap me I’m too cool to be in the Olympics. She probably won’t live this fine piece of showboating down, at least not until Vancouver 2010 or if she does something even more ridiculous on an international stage.

On the flipside of the coin, we have speed skater Joey Cheek, who gave away his gold and silver medal bonuses to an international charity “Right to Play”, and alpine skier and Mancuso’s friend and teammate Linsey Kildow, who after a horrifying training crash still managed to compete in all alpine events with true grit and perseverance. We need more Cheeks and Kildows in our Olympic team, and less tiaras, pearls and sophomoric pissing contests.

Americans have enough raw talent to win lots of medals. However, I won’t be sorry if Latvia wins more in the next Winter Olympics in Vancouver. They’ll probably show more humility and the spirit of the Olympics than this privileged bunch of juvenile clowns we call our own ever can.

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